By GERRY SWANSON
If we pause to look, there’s always a lesson to be learned from every hunt we take.
In the fall of 1883, Theodore Roosevelt, then a 24 year old Harvard graduate, went to the Dakota Territory to fulfill a boy-hood dream of hunting bison. Back then it was still seen as the iconic big game trophy of western lore and legend. Roosevelt finally located and shot his buffalo, but what he truly gained from this hunt was a first hand look at the devastating effects that decades of unbridled exploitation had had on the west’s wildlife and its natural resources.
Conservation was to find its most vocal, most colorful and most influential leader, at a time when it needed leadership most. As a dedicated and respectful hunter, Roosevelt deplored the wanton killing of game, whether for commerce or sport. To him, hunting was a noble venture, a true test between hunter and the hunted.
In the confluence of these two notions was born the sportsman-conservationist. Roosevelt didn’t want to just add to the clamor, he wanted to take action, to spearhead policies that would serve to protect big game and, in so doing, preserve America’s hunting heritage.
Roosevelt invited a small but highly influential group of men to dinner at his home in New York City in December of 1887. All of his guests were avid big game hunters. From that dinner, these men would become the core of what today is the oldest wildlife conservation organization in America: the Boone and Crockett Club.
For the name of the new organization, the members reached back into America’s past and selected two men who symbolized the essence of the original frontier character: Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Rugged and self-reliant, both were true woodsmen, and skilled hunters, as well as men of courage and bold action, traits that would well describe Roosevelt’s presidency.
The club’s first effort was to enlarge and seek effective protection of Yellowstone Park, especially the park’s handful of remaining bison. The club secured passage of the Yellowstone Park Protection Act of 1894.
Over the course of the past century, little has happened in wildlife and habitat conservation that has not been initiated, established or influenced by the Boone and Crockett Club and its members. The club has had its hand in most of the landmark milestones in conservation, such as the establishment of the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Wildlife Refuge System.
To put an end to the commercial market slaughter of wildlife, the club secured the passage of the Lacey Act in 1900. To secure and preserve pristine places, the club helped establish, Glacier and Denali National parks to name a few, and later helped secure the passage of the Wilderness Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
In the late 1990s, there was discussion among the conservation and hunting groups to come together to support legislation in Congress that would help conserve habitat, manage wildlife populations and preserve our hunting heritage.
In 2000, the club invited 17 groups to a meeting at its national headquarters in Missoula Montana. Together these groups laid the foundation for the most powerful coalition advocating conservation and hunting in the history of the country, the American Wildlife Conservation Partners. Today, AWCP numbers some 47 groups representing 8 million sportsmen and sportswomen.
Thanks to Boone and Crockett, the sporting community is better represented in Washington D.C, today than any time since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.
Conservation had a beginning but has no end. The members of Boone and Crockett Club and hunters are joined by a common passion to preserve a wildlife legacy for future generations. The fire continues to burn, and not a day goes by that good and worthwhile conservation work doesn’t get done in the great outdoors.
